


Without Losers, Where Would the Winners Be?

by Marks



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Flashbacks, High School, Recreational Drug Use, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marks/pseuds/Marks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why wouldn't Charlie know where Dee is? They've known each other for twenty years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without Losers, Where Would the Winners Be?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fujiidom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujiidom/gifts).



> Thanks to Dee and Charlie for being such losers. This has a mix of canonical details and slightly AU details, specifically shouting out "The High School Reunion" and "The Gang Misses the Boat." Title from Casey Stengel. Hope you like this, fujiidom!

_11:30 AM; On a Thursday; Philadelphia, PA_

"Has anyone seen Dee?" Dennis asked.

Mac lifted his head from the bar. "Who cares?"

"Usually I wouldn't, but she hasn't showed up to work in a week," Dennis said.

Mac shrugged. "She's probably dead. Again, who cares? She's the worst waitress on earth."

"Did someone say waitress?" Charlie popped out of the back room, ominously covered in some kind of black slime and rubbing his hands with a towel. The towel only seemed to make him dirtier.

"Stand down, Charlie," Dennis said, waving one hand dismissively. "It's not that troll doll you're obsessed with. We're talking about my sister, who's probably dead in a ditch somewhere."

"Oh," Charlie said, deflating. "Wait, Dee's dead?"

"Probably," Mac said. He shrugged again. "Who cares?"

Charlie dug a phone out of his pocket and punched at it. "Dee?" he said a moment later. "You're not dead, are you?" The tinny sound of someone screeching could be heard on the other end, which then cut off abruptly. "Good news, guys, Dee's not dead."

"Whatever," Mac said, putting his head down on the bar again.

Dennis eyed Charlie suspiciously. "Do you have my sister's phone number programmed into your phone?"

"Dennis, I've known her for like twenty years. Why wouldn't I?"

+

_4:00 PM; On a Monday; 1995; Philadelphia, PA_

Charlie was getting high under the bleachers again. It wasn't as cool as it sounded, mostly because Charlie wasn't the cool kind of burnout. He didn't have any X connections, and he sold off all the pot he bummed off of Mac to the jocks and cheerleaders. It was pretty much the only way he could make any extra cash, since his mom really didn't have that much for the two of them. Which left him with a creative assortment of permanent markers and paint cans with an occasional Robitussin chaser. But it got the job done, which was all he really cared about.

There was a sudden squeaking, not like a mouse, but more like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz before he got a hit off his oil can. Charlie hurried to shove his paper bag of silver spray paint behind his back but the squeaking continued and paid no attention to Charlie. Then the squeaking was accompanied by a soft sound. It took Charlie a second to recognize it as crying, which is when Charlie recognized Mac's friend Dennis's sister, the one with the crazy metal exoskeleton thing crying five feet away and not noticing Charlie at all.

"Dammit," Charlie muttered under his breath. He wasn't really great at feelings. Like, he _had_ feelings and he felt bad when he saw people who were sad, but he didn't know what to do or say around them. So maybe it wasn't so much that Charlie was bad at feelings as he wasn't good at words or actions. He started backing up, trying to make a quiet getaway so the Aluminum Monster could have a squeaky cry in peace, but he even fucked that up, tripping over the cuffs of his old, torn jeans and falling flat on his ass.

Dennis's sister whirled around and immediately her expression hardened. Her face was still red and tear-streaked, but this was someone who clearly had practice going from crying to not crying very quickly. "What the hell are you doing?"

Charlie, still on his ass, slowly offered up his paper bag. "Huffing?" he suggested, like he wasn't sure. "Want some?"

+

Twenty minutes later, Dee's face was stained chrome like her back brace and she was laughing. "Anyway, that was when Adriano Calvanese said I looked like a telephone pole, which is just a riot, isn't it? You know, skinny with metal sticking out everywhere? He's so funny."

Charlie shook his head. "That seems pretty mean to me. But I'm glad you thought it was funny," he added helpfully.

Dee looked sideways at Charlie. Her eyes were still red and puffy. "You're weird."

"So are you," Charlie said defensively. He already knew he was weird because he didn't like showering and liked the smell of gasoline and had more rat friends than human friends, but deep down he thought everyone was weird. People all had an idea of what normal was, but he didn't know anyone normal. Maybe it was just Philadelphia, but Charlie thought it was probably the whole world.

Dee handed the paper bag back to Charlie and stood up with effort, brushing dirt off her legs. "I better get home," she said, but laughed to herself again. "Not that anyone will notice if I'm gone all night. Do I look all right?" Dee asked. Her face was still tear-streaked and she had spray paint staining her mouth and nose. Her ass was covered in dirt that she hadn't noticed, too. Plus, there was that whole giant metal back brace thing.

"You look fine," Charlie said. She wasn't completely covered in bugs or anything.

Dee let out a sigh of relief. "Cool. Are you here a lot after school?"

"Sure," Charlie said, "and during school, too." 

"If you're here tomorrow, I'll bring something better than old cans of spray paint." Dee shrugged, fake-casual. "You know, if you want."

Charlie shrugged back. That sounded okay. "Cool."

"Cool," Dee said again. "Anyway, bye." She gave an awkward little wave and walked off.

As he was watching her walk away, Charlie felt a funny little flip in his stomach. He swore spray paint gave him the weirdest aftereffects.

+

Dee was there the next afternoon, as promised, and also as promised, she had a full bottle of whiskey clutched in one hand. "The good stuff," she assured Charlie, like Charlie had any opinions on booze beyond 'can this get me drunk?' But Charlie nodded approvingly anyway. 

"Where did you get this?" Charlie asked, as they companionably passed the bottle between them.

Dee grinned at that, like she'd just been waiting for Charlie to ask. "Stole it from my bitch mother. If she asks, I'll just say that Dennis did it." Dee rolled her eyes. "Dennis is a perfect angel who can do no wrong, according to her."

"Dennis, your brother, Dennis? That Dennis?" Charlie asked. His words were starting to slur a little, so it was possible he just heard her wrong. "He's kind of crazy, isn't he?"

"He is!" Dee agreed gleefully. "But my mom would probably blow it off if Dennis robbed a liquor store at gunpoint, let alone raided her liquor cabinet."

"What about your dad?"

Dee laughed. "My dad is probably banging prostitutes in Thailand right now, what the fuck does he care what me and Dennis do?" She grabbed the bottle back from Charlie and took two big gulps, then shuddered. "Jesus, that's terrible." Dee took another drink and handed the bottle back to Charlie.

“Can I finish this?” Charlie asked. Probably about a third of the bottle was left.

“I don’t know, can you?” Dee asked skeptically, eyeing him up and down. Even sitting, she was still a few inches taller than him. Most dudes his size would be sprawled on the ground by now, but if Charlie sprawled out on the ground, it wouldn’t be because he was drunk off his ass. He just liked being on the ground. His dirt grub reputation didn’t come from nowhere.

Charlie took the challenge, draining the bottle in about a minute. Some spilled out of the side of his mouth, but he really did put most of it back.

Dee looked impressed. Charlie didn’t know if Dee was actually hard to impress or if she just wanted to come across that way, but he felt sort of proud of himself all the same.

“Wow, dude. You’re gonna barf eight kinds of Technicolor,” Dee said.

“That’s so cool!” Charlie said.

“You’re weird, did you know that?”

"I know, you told me."

Dee shrugged. “Anyway, you drank all the booze, so I guess I’ll get going. Maybe Dennis will give me a ride home if I’m nice enough.” She rolled her eyes. “And as long as no one sees me."

"Your family life sounds fun," Charlie said.

Dee snorted. "You know it." She walked off with the same awkward wave as the day before.

"Bye!" Charlie called to her back. He flopped backwards onto the ground, sending up a cloud of dirt like Pigpen in those cartoons with the dog and the bald kid with cancer. Awesome.

+

Charlie and Mac were outside Charlie’s locker. They’d been there for a while; Charlie had forgotten his locker combination again.

“Jesus Christ, dude,” Mac said. “What is this, the fifth time this year?”

“Fourth!” Charlie shot back defensively. But maybe it was the fifth, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t good at numbers, which is what got him into locker trouble in the first place. Mac shoved him out of the way and opened Charlie’s locker for him. Great. Mac figured out the combination just from watching Charlie often enough, which was something else Mac was going to lord over him, like having more than one friend and having weed connections and having a dad, even if Mac’s dad was the worst and also in prison. But Mac was petty as shit sometimes. He was also Charlie’s oldest friend and liked to pretend he was an enforcer, which occasionally resulted in Mac getting his ass kicked worse than Charlie, and that worked out pretty well for him.

"Well, look who it is," someone said, coming up behind Charlie. Mac had a look on his face half-hopeful, half-looking like he just stepped in dog shit. It was Adriano and his friends. Mac's friend Dennis -- Dee's brother -- was hovering on the edge of the crowd, already laughing maniacally. No one really paid attention to him. "Ronnie the Rat and Dirt Grub! Long time no see."

Mac scratched his head. "I saw you Monday, Adriano. We have biology together."

"Ooh! Did you get to dissect frogs?" Charlie asked. He wasn't good at science, either, but dissection was awesome. Who wouldn't want to stab a frog and see what its insides looked like? When Charlie did it last week, all the girls in his class who usually pretended he didn't exist let him gut theirs, too. He even found a fly in one of their stomachs.

"Yeah, Adriano and I were paired up by Mr. Rosen, but he wouldn't slice the little bastard, so I did it. Remember that, Adriano?" Some of Adriano's friends started murmuring to each other.

Now Charlie wasn't very smart, but he knew the look on Adriano's face wasn't good. It was the same look he had right before that one time he made Charlie eat spiders. "I have no fucking idea what you're talking about," Adriano snarled. He grabbed Mac by the collar and lifted him a couple of inches up off the ground. "Got it?"

"Got it, got it, got it," Mac repeated in a squeaky voice. Adriano threw Mac against the row of lockers, then swept his leg under Charlie's feet just for good measure, causing him to fall flat on his face.

"Hey!" someone said. Charlie thought it was Mac, since the voice was high-pitched and Mac had just been squeaking, but the voice kept going, "You're a dick, Adriano. Dirt Grub -- Charlie wasn't even doing anything." Then Charlie recognized the shrill voice as Dee's. Before they started meeting up under the bleachers, this was the only voice he'd ever heard out of her mouth. "Dennis, isn't this dillweed your friend? Stand up for him, fuckface!" Dee continued, jerking her thumb at Mac. Unfortunately, the motion sort of set her off-balance because of her back brace, and she ended up falling against the lockers, too, a squeaky tree stopped mid-timber.

Adriano's gang started laughing immediately, and even Mac and Charlie were two seconds away from cracking up. 

"Watch out, everyone! The Aluminum Monster's going to destroy the whole school," Adriano said gleefully and started doing the robot as he and his friends walked away. Dennis hovered behind, looking from the popular kids to his sister. He finally walked over just as Adriano wouldn't be able to see him anymore -- not that he'd been looking, Charlie noted -- and helped everyone back to their feet.

"Stop being such a _loser_. You're ruining my life," Dennis hissed at Dee, and ran off after the crowd.

Dee looked embarrassed. Charlie caught her eye for a second, but she hurried off too quickly for him to say anything. He didn't even know what he wanted to say. Thank her, maybe.

"I hate that girl," Mac said, shaking his head. Charlie didn't think he did, really, but Dee was an unfortunately easy target.

+

Dee wasn't under the bleachers that afternoon. Charlie didn't really care. It just meant he had didn't have to share his mom's nail polish remover with anyone else. 

+

An hour later Charlie was cutting back through the school because his mom had promised they'd have the good kind of boxed mac and cheese for dinner, and he figured he should get home, but he had to take a leak first. There were still kids around, but they were all outside practicing sports or cheerleading or whatever it was people who had extracurricular activities did. Charlie was in band for like two minutes; he liked music okay and he liked messing around on the piano, but his grades were too low for him to stay in it. It wasn't a big deal.

Anyway, the school was pretty empty and he could hear his footsteps echoing back at him. He passed by the music room and that was quiet too, since most of the band kids were practicing marching formations outside. There was a small sobbing sound, though, and Charlie swore to himself because he recognized it this time. He pushed open the music room door and saw exactly what he expected to see. Dee was crying again, this time on the small stage the drama kids practiced on sometimes. She was sitting on the stage, folded over as much as her brace would let her. Charlie sat down right next to her.

"Charlie!" Dee said, looking up in surprise. Then her shoulders slumped and she wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I guess I should be happy it was you who found me."

"Did you want to be found?" Charlie asked. 

"No. Yes." Dee shrugged. "I don't know."

"I wasn't sure," Charlie said. "Because on one hand you're crying in a classroom on a stage, instead of alone in your room or in a bathroom or something, but on the other hand, no one's really here. So I guess neither of us knows."

"I guess. You're kind of smart sometimes, Charlie." Dee looked embarrassed. "And I'm kind of a mess," she added.

Charlie nodded. "Me too. So do you want to be a mess with me or a mess alone?"

Dee actually laughed at that. "You don't know what you're getting into," she said.

"Sure I do," Charlie said. "Every person I know is a fucking mess. What's one more?"

+

"What, are you two hanging out now or some shit?" Mac asked after Charlie told him Dee might be joining them. He didn't look happy about it. "Like, I know you're a loser, but I hang out with you because we've known each other forever. Dee sucks. It's bad enough she lives at Dennis's house and I have to see her there."

"You've been to Dennis's house?" Charlie asked. His voice came out strangely, some mix of surprise and jealousy. Charlie didn't want to be Dennis's friend exactly, but he'd hang out with him if it meant hanging out with Mac. 

"It's no big deal," Mac said. "Even though his house is fucking _huge_ , oh my god, you wouldn't believe it."

"Jesus. Shut up, Mac," Charlie said. He could see Dee now, and she was struggling to get down the hill alongside the train tracks.

"You dummies hang out by the train tracks?" Dee said after she'd skidded to a stop in front of them. She managed to stay upright, too, which was something. "What the hell do you even do here?"

"All sorts of things," Charlie said. "Throw rocks at trains, look for cool stuff in the rubble." 

Dee raised an eyebrow. "This is some dumb shit, I've got to say." 

Charlie really didn't get it. Dee wasn't exactly _nice_ when it was just the two of them, but she wasn't a raging bitch either. It was like she couldn't turn it off the second more than two people were in a room. Or by a track, in this case. If it were possible, Mac looked even more pissed off.

After a half hour of three of them together, Charlie was barely keeping them from killing each other, and then Mac abruptly said he had to leave. This hadn't been one of Charlie's better ideas.

"Why do you even hang out with him?" Dee asked. "He's terrible."

"Jesus. Shut up, Dee," Charlie said.

Dee shrugged. "Want to come over my house tomorrow?"

+

Mac was wrong about Dee and Dennis's house. It wasn't awesome, it was scary. Everything was too big and when he had to use the bathroom, Dee's directions were nearly a minute long. He got lost and wound up pissing in some closet. Probably no one would even notice for a week. And it took him forever to find Dee again after.

Dee's room was nice, though.

"How do you keep everything clean?" Charlie asked, looking around. His room was a shithole. He gingerly took a seat at the edge of Dee's ruffly bed, not wanting to mess anything up.

"Me, keep everything clean?" Dee asked. She looked genuinely confused. "Oh, right. Poor people stuff. I don't clean anything. Our maid, Lucia cleans it for us. She's poor, too," Dee said encouragingly. Then she made a face like she'd just smelled a fart, and ran one finger over the edge of her fancy, spotless desk. "And she did a shit job of it, too. I could complain to my mom, but nothing would happen. It's not like Lucia does a shit job of cleaning _Dennis's_ room."

"Dee, are you talking to yourself about me? Or is Fatty Magoo in there with you?" Dennis called from the hall, kicking Dee's door open. "I know she's in love with me, but --" He cut off himself off abruptly, spotting Charlie on Dee's bed. Dee looked like a deer, two seconds from getting creamed by a pick-up truck.

"Hello, Charles," Dennis said formally.

"Uh, hi?" Charlie glanced warily from Dennis to Dee. Were all twins this weird, or was it just these two?

"What is he doing here?" Dennis asked, gesturing to Charlie but addressing Dee.

"He's my friend," Dee said, defiantly lifting her chin. "I'm allowed to have friends!"

"Yes, but they're all fat girls or at least so awkward that they lost to you in strange child beauty pageants." Dennis made air quotes as he said 'beauty.' "Not that Charlie here is any great prize, but he's certainly not going to be impressed by you. And it might have escaped your notice, but Charlie is a guy. Guys don't want to spend time with you." He waved his hand at Dee, a dismissive gesture spanning from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. "So gangly. So awkward. Even someone as devoid of positive characteristics as Charlie must recognize that."

"I'm right here," Charlie reminded Dennis.

"Yes, I see you," Dennis said, still staring at Dee. "Good for you, listening so carefully. Now get out of my house. Don't sully what little reputation you have by hanging out with my sister." He focused his attention fully on Charlie then, and his eyes were wild. Charlie's own eyes widened with fear. "It's for your own good."

Charlie hesitated for a second until Dee let out an annoyed sigh. "Just go, Charlie," Dee said. "I know you want to."

"Are you sure?" Charlie said, happy to look away from Dennis.

"Yes! Get out!" Dee screeched. 

Charlie managed to stumble out of the Reynolds' house without getting maimed or killed, though he did wind up in the pee closet again first. He figured his piss-covered sneakers were a fair trade-off.

+

They met at the bleachers the next day. Alone again, though this time they sat on top of the bleachers instead of under them. Charlie didn't know that he'd ever sat here before.

"So," Charlie said.

"So," Dee said, "I guess the great experiment is over."

"I guess so," Charlie agreed, then asked, "What experiment?"

Dee shook her head. "The experiment where I get to have friends that I didn't bribe into being friends with me. Did you know I give Ingrid Nelson all my old clothes? It's not like she fits in them because she's big as a house, but she says she can use the material." She shrugged. "Maybe she's patching them all together like a giant thrift store muumuu."

"That's mean," Charlie said.

"Well, I'm a bitch," Dee said.

Charlie shook his head. "Not always." He paused. "Okay, a lot. But not always."

Dee smiled sadly. "You're sweet, Charlie."

"You're sweet, too," Charlie said. He didn't know that he'd ever used sweet about a person before, just shit he liked. The Flyers were sweet. Star Wars was pretty sweet. Cherry bombs were _totally_ sweet. "Sweet Dee," he said, and laughed.

"Yeah, right," Dee said. She stretched her arms over her head and twisted in her seat, like she wasn't used to it.

Something was different.

"Hey!" Charlie shouted suddenly. Dee nearly fell over out of shock. "Where the hell's your metal dealie? The brace?"

"Oh, that," Dee said casually, but he could tell she was pleased he noticed. "I went to the doctor this morning -- got to miss first and second period -- and he said I only have to wear the brace five days a week now. Figured I'd give freedom a try."

Just then Adriano Calvanese jogged by for football, or soccer, or track. Charlie had no fucking idea. He did a double-take looking in their direction and ran into Bill Ponderosa, who also did a double-take once he got up. It took Charlie a second to realize they'd seen Dee, and that was why he nearly fell over. And that made Charlie feel really weird. Like, he really hated the feeling weird.

"I'd better go," Charlie said. He stood up, just as a short blonde girl started climbing the bleachers toward them.

"Hey, Charlie," she said with a friendly wave. "How's your brother, Dee?"

Dee pressed her mouth into a fake smile. "Oh, he's great. He was totally asking about you the other day!"

"Really?" the girl said. She smiled brightly. She had straight, even teeth, and all of them. Cool.

"Totally, you should call him," Dee said in a voice that Charlie knew was a lie. But he knew Dee pretty well now; the girl didn't seem to pick up on it. "Ugh, she's the worst," Dee said under her breath, once the girl sat a few rows down from them.

"Who's that?" Charlie asked, still staring at the back of the girl's blonde head. It was almost the same color as Dee's.

Dee shrugged. "Nicki, or Tiffany, or Jessica, or Luther. I don't fucking know. She works part time as a waitress at the coffee shop two blocks down. And she's always fucking drunk."

Charlie kept staring. "She's pretty."

"Her?" Dee tilted her head and stood up. "Pretty short, if that's what you mean."

"Short's okay," Charlie said, standing up on this toes. “I’m short.”

“You’re not that short,” Dee muttered.

+

_1:00 PM; On a Thursday; Present Day, Philadelphia, PA_

Charlie knocked on Dee's door. She didn't answer right away, so Charlie knocked louder. Then he started yelling for her.

" _What_?" Dee shouted finally, pulling open her apartment door. She didn't look like she'd seen the sun in a while, but otherwise, she seemed fine. "Jesus, Charlie, what the hell do you want?"

Charlie shrugged and pushed his way inside without too much effort. "You haven't been into work in a few days."

"So?"

"So, don't you think it's good to show up to your job?"

Dee snorted. "Who cares? It's not like I make any money there. And it's not like anyone wants me around anyway."

"Oh, cut the crap, Dee," Charlie said. "You know that we're mean to you -- that we're all dicks to each other, really, but every time you're missing for like ten minutes Dennis notices and then I notice and then maybe Frank and even Mac notice. You're stuck with us."

Dee threw her hands up. "Well, yeah, maybe that's the problem. Maybe I've been sitting here trying to figure out why I keep hanging out with you guys, even though we're all awful to each other," she said. "I know that bothers you, Charlie. Can we stop pretending that it doesn't?"

"You mean." Charlie looked uncomfortable. He ran his hands through his hair. "You mean from a couple of months ago, right? When we --" Charlie made a descriptive hand gesture.

"Gross," Dee said. "But yeah. But longer than that, too. We were friends when we were kids -- we were almost friends for real back then. We were almost _more_ back then, too. Remember?"

Charlie started shaking his head, but stopped himself because he was lying and he knew it. "Yeah," he said. "Of course I remember."

Dee sat on her couch. The apartment looked emptier since Mac and Dennis moved out again, and she looked small sitting there. Charlie sat down next to her just to make her a normal size again. It only worked because Charlie felt kind of small, too.

"We can stop ignoring it, if you want," Charlie said. "If that's not working anymore."

"Was it working before?" Dee asked.

"Yes. No. Maybe." Charlie felt very mixed-up. That happened a lot, but it was a different kind of mix-up now. Like a serious one, not a gas-fume induced one. He stopped and thought, trying to make up his mind. "No," he finally said. "It wasn't working before."

Dee sighed. "We're good people, right?"

Charlie made a face. "No," he said. "But who cares? Let's just be ourselves." At that, Charlie grabbed Dee's hand and squeezed. Dee squeezed back. "This can be something we want. It's okay," he said, half-trying to convince himself.

"This can be something we want," Dee repeated. "It's okay." Just saying the words seemed to make Dee straighten up a little more.

A second later Mac, Dennis, and Frank crowded around Dee's doorway. Charlie wasn't surprised they'd followed him to Dee's. Things always ended with the five of them.But, Charlie decided, noticing Dennis looking at their joined hands, they didn't have to pretend obvious things weren't there. 

"What the hell is going on here?" Dennis said. Charlie felt Dee start to pull her hand away; he would have let her, if she wanted, but she apparently changed her mind and left it there.

Dee cleared her throat. "Dennis, Charlie and I have something we need to tell everyone," she began.

Dennis's screams could be heard two blocks away, but Charlie didn't care. He felt more like himself than he had in ages. Well, once his eardrums stopped bleeding, at least.


End file.
